The satellite’s purpose was to collect data on the bio-optical properties of our planet’s land masses and oceans. As it did so, it watched Earth’s living colours change with the seasons.

The SeaWiFS wasn’t the first sensor to collect optical information on our planet’s biosphere, with the Landsat program commencing their imaging work in the early 70s.

It’s also far from the last, as an increasing variety of digital technologies are sent into orbit to map the light bouncing back in ever finer resolutions.

For researchers, long-term trends help provide a glimpse of things to come in the near future. Satellite data from such programs is used to monitor the health of crops, forests, and fisheries around the world year by year, helping to improve models and forecast disasters.

The rest of us can appreciate the sheer beauty of our globe as our planet seems to almost breathe.

Just take a look at the image below to get a sense of Earth’s living pulse, as the white of the ice advances and retreats, the purple tones indicating sparse levels of phytoplankton, and the fading and darkening greens reflecting plant growth and algal blooms.

“That’s the Earth, that is it breathing every single day, changing with the seasons, responding to the Sun, to the changing winds, ocean currents and temperatures,” says Gene Carl Feldman, an oceanographer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre.

Technology is reaching the point where sensors can pick up finer details at wavelengths that can reveal what’s going on at a chemical level.

For example, specific changes in the light reflected from plants can highlight the moments photosynthesis is converting carbon dioxide and water into sugars.

Several years ago, NASA used this method to investigate the productivity of corn crops in the US Midwest.